Calling from 2066, Brendan Latimer argues that the best way to save opera might be to just blow up the standard repertoire altogether.
There was a lot expectation about the new opera by George Benjamin and Martin Crimp. Their previous collaboration, Written on Skin, was an enormous critical and public success, earning the work a place in the exclusive club of 21th century classics with selected works by Saariaho, Heggie and Birtwistle.
Contemporary stagings of Parsifal tend to be spare, abstract affairs scrubbed of religious associations, knights in armor and, sometimes, a grail.
The setting: a dark plaza extending directly in front of a storied opera house. The time: just after a ho-hum revival of something Puccini. The crowd streams out, moderately satisfied but also far from bowled over. A group open to a proposition, you could say.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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